When Tomorrow Comes
by Provocative Envy
Summary: ONE-SHOT: I'd wanted the rest of the world to know, the same way I did—elementally, with every last scrap of blood and plasma and grey matter that called my brain its home—that she was mine, that I'd managed to dislodge my head from my arse long enough to recognize that perfection personified had a name, and it was Hermione. HG/DM.


**When Tomorrow Comes**

_By: Provocative Envy_

OOO

**Author's Note**: I'm still writing _Nightmare_, obviously, but I was feeling nostalgic for Dramione a few weeks ago and this was the result. It's first-person Draco, which I've only done once before, and I'm rather happy with how it turned out—he's such an incredible character to write, and there was something delicious about doing this from his point of view. This is a one-shot for now (in three parts, not that that counts), but I'm thinking of writing a companion to it—maybe a prequel? I haven't decided yet. But anyway. I hope you all like it. Enjoy!

OOO

_**Thursday, April 22**_

_**3:27 pm**_

_**Potions Corridor **_

Pansy's hands were all fucking wrong.

Clammy and damp and almost _too_ soft—it was like being latched onto by a soggy scrap of parchment.

My lip curled derisively.

Hermione's hands, though—_Granger's_ hands—didn't feel like that. Hers were tiny and feminine and delicate, her fingertips constantly ink-stained, her nails blunt-cut and neatly manicured. Her skin was warm and smooth—like silk, really—and I sometimes marveled that she allowed me to touch it at all.

She never wore nail polish.

"Stop that," I hissed at Pansy, wrenching my arm out of her grasp. I pretended not to notice the poorly concealed flash of hurt that sparked across her watery blue eyes. "Fuck's _sake_, Parkinson."

"Draco," she pouted, pursing her lips. They were puffy and red and slicked with something shiny. My stomach rolled. "What's the matter? You've been avoiding me for _ages_."

I leaned against the wall, heaving a sigh. I desperately wanted a fucking cigarette.

"Nothing," I bit out, staring at my watch. Three minutes. Snape would be there in three fucking minutes, and I wouldn't have to talk to her anymore.

Pansy scowled.

"You could at least _pretend_ that you aren't lying," she retorted, crossing her arms over her chest, directly beneath her breasts. The top three buttons of her shirt were undone. I couldn't be bothered to look. It was just too fucking _easy_.

"I'm not lying," I said automatically, running an impatient hand through my hair. My ears twitched. Someone was coming. I glanced up.

And then I wanted to pummel my fucking fists into the wall.

Because _his_ fucking arm was draped loosely—casually—across her shoulders, his bony, freckled fingers tangled in the ends of her hair. She was laughing at something he'd said, her expression relaxed and happy, but her eyes—

They were blank.

I wondered if I was the only one who noticed.

"What are you staring at the mudblood for?" Pansy asked, her voice tinged with something shrill and accusatory.

"Her skirt's shorter today, isn't it?" I mused, knowing how much my remark would infuriate Pansy. "She's got nice legs."

"You're such a disgusting prat, Draco," she snapped, glaring at me. "I don't know why I put up with you."

I shrugged. Granger's body was turned slightly away from Weasley's. Her jaw was clenched. Her smile, though, was wide and bright and unfailingly cheerful.

"You probably shouldn't," I agreed, shoving my hands in my pockets. _Fuck_, but I wanted a cigarette. I sidled closer to Granger and Weasley.

"—to be careful, Malfoy's watching you again," Weasley was saying, his tone annoyingly possessive. "What's his fucking problem, anyway?"

She glanced over at me.

Our eyes met.

My throat closed.

And I wished, not for the first time—and with no small amount of bitterness—that things were different. That it wasn't her—_Granger_, for fuck's sake—who reduced me to a quivering pile of choking adolescent _need_. Because that was the worst part, wasn't it?

I fucking _needed _her.

It hadn't started that way. No—that wasn't strictly true. Even from the beginning, I'd been aware, on some distant, not-quite-real level, that I wasn't in control. That no matter the fact that _I_ was fucking _her_, she was _taking_ me, all of me, no questions or recriminations or regrets. It would have—_should_ have—bothered me, but I hadn't realized, not at first, what it meant, to give myself away like that. I hadn't known. No one had told me. No one had fucking explained what it _felt_ like, had they? Because if they had, I might have said no. I might have walked away. I might have had the presence of mind to understand that Granger, for all her prissy, pretentious posturing, was fucking _special_ in a way that I didn't deserve.

She'd just—

She'd just smelled so _good_. Like vanilla and clean laundry and something else, something musky and sharp and completely unique to her—I'd buried my face in her neck and spent a full ten seconds just fucking _breathing_, in and out, over and over, trying to drown my senses, hoping that whatever it was that had infected me, turned me stupid, wasn't fucking permanent. And, _God_, then I'd _tasted _her—

_Fucking hell_.

That had been a mistake, hadn't it?

I'd tasted her, and she'd fucking ruined me.

It was supposed to have been a _joke_, for fuck's sake. She wasn't supposed to have kissed me back. It wasn't supposed to have felt like—well, like it had. Like coming home after a particularly long, horrible day, only to remember that there was nothing quite so satisfying as a large cup of tea and a roaring, blistering fire. And all I'd wanted to do afterwards was _tell someone_, anyone, the nearest fucking first-year would've done—I'd wanted the rest of the world to know, the same way I did—elementally, with every last scrap of blood and plasma and grey matter that called my brain its fucking home—that she was _mine_, that I'd managed to dislodge my head from my arse long enough to recognize that perfection personified had a name and it was fucking—it was _Hermione_.

But that wasn't possible, was it?

Not while Harry Potter lived and breathed. Not while there was evil to vanquish. Not while my father was the unapologetic Prince of the Death Eaters—or, at the very least, an unusually territorial archduke.

Because—her and I, we had our roles to play, didn't we? I was a slimy git with more money than morals, and _she_—she was brave and loyal and brilliant, fighting for the other side, the good side, the side that was probably going to end up winning and shoving me face-first into the nearest available cell in Azkaban.

And so I let Pansy Parkinson tell people we were shagging. And Granger let Weasley grope her in public. And I spent the majority of my days counting down the hours to 11:59—the time we met, the only time we were able to, the time we'd both silently designated as _ours_. She'd said something, back when we'd started, back when fuck-all made sense and I still hadn't figured out why kissing her made me dizzy—she'd said something about 11:59 being the closest we could get to tomorrow, and that tomorrow was all we had to look forward to—it had been romantic, I'd thought, in a peculiarly depressing sort of way.

It took me awhile, though, to get what she meant. It always did.

"Oi! Malfoy!"

I was brought back to the present by an obnoxious shout.

"What do you want, Weasley?" I drawled, arching a brow. Granger's attention, I noticed smugly, was focused entirely upon me. Her eyes scraped over the lines of my body roughly, unflinchingly—_hungrily_. Desire swept thick and hot and fast through my bloodstream.

"Stop fucking staring at Hermione," Weasley barked. "What are you playing at, anyway?"

She flushed. I sneered.

"Just enjoying the scenery," I replied drolly, smirking as Weasley's face turned a rather unappealing shade of red.

"Piss off, Malfoy," he snarled, taking a protective step forward.

"Oh, _Ronald_, leave it alone," Granger put in irritably. "He doesn't mean anything by it."

Weasley snorted. I cocked my head to the side and pointedly let my gaze linger on Granger's bare legs.

"Yeah, Weasley," I taunted nonchalantly. "I don't mean anything by it."

He glowered at me for a seemingly endless, unfathomably tense moment, and I was so fucking sure he was going to hit me—what would Granger _say_?—but then Pansy huffed, breaking the silence, and he looked away.

"Let's _go_, Draco," Pansy said, grabbing my elbow and steering me towards the classroom. "Snape's here."

I turned towards her, opening my mouth to respond scathingly, until I noticed that Granger's eyes were trained on Pansy's hand, an unfamiliarly unpleasant expression marring her features—and then my gut clenched and my pulse ground to a halt and all I could think about doing was making sure she smiled again, immediately, right then and there, because if she didn't—if she didn't, I'd have to fucking kill Pansy, never mind the consequences, because it was something _Pansy_ was doing that was making Granger look like that—

She looked lost.

Forlorn.

_Confused_—as if she finally didn't have a fucking answer, and she wasn't sure what to do next, and that wasn't right, that wasn't Granger—she was the type to suck my cock, swallow my cum, and then ask me if I needed help with my Arithmancy homework—she didn't _look like that_, not ever, and _fuck it all_, if Weasley didn't fucking start to _pay attention_ and learn to identify _precisely_ when his moronic fucking jokes were needed—I'd fucking kill him too, bury the body with Pansy's, and then I'd have Granger to myself, just like I wanted, no, _needed_—we could be together, no more waiting for sodding _tomorrow_, whatever the hell that meant, and—

Her face cleared.

She moved closer to Weasley.

Pansy slammed the door behind us.

The sound echoed weakly in my head—like a premonition.

_11:59_. That was all I had to wait for. All I had to fucking wait for.

OOO

_**Friday, April 23**_

_**12:30 am**_

_**Astronomy Tower**_

She was late.

She was never late.

Not ever.

Not once had she ever fucking been late.

For fuck's _sake_. It was already technically tomorrow, wasn't it?

I took a long, hard drag on my cigarette before flicking it away. It was dark—blindingly dark, eerily dark, the moon nothing more than a tiny silver crescent peeking out from behind a wispy pile of clouds. There weren't any stars out. Not tonight. It was as if they were hiding.

I glanced down at my watch. Half twelve. She was thirty-one minutes late.

She was never fucking late.

I rested my elbows on the window ledge, tapping my fingers petulantly against the weather-worn stone. She was probably with her friends. Helping them with their homework, no doubt.

I sneered.

Useless fucking miscreants.

Footsteps, light and quick, sounded from behind me. I stood up straight, my back rigid, but I didn't turn towards her. I felt a small, warm hand rest itself on my shoulder.

_Like silk_, I thought dimly.

"Where have you been?" I asked quietly, staring out the window. "I was—worried."

She didn't reply, but I heard her breath catch, ragged and thick, in the back of her throat. I immediately spun around—and then I wished I hadn't.

Because something was wrong.

She was standing completely still, her eyes shut tight and framed by long black lashes that were clumped together from unshed tears—not fucking _mascara_, not like Pansy, nothing like Pansy—and her cheeks were wet, her lips full and pink and trembling, and I wanted nothing more than to kiss her—but her expression stopped me.

She looked sad.

Miserable, even.

And she was late.

She was never fucking late.

"_Draco_."

Her voice—scratchy and thin and so fucking different—no, no, _not_ her voice, she didn't sound like that, she never fucking sounded like that—it wasn't her prim and proper drawl, the one that used to make me want to gag her during lessons, the one I used to secretly wank to, imagining her lips brushing against my ear as she whispered naughty things, filthy things, things I couldn't picture her ever even fucking _thinking_, let alone _saying_—

I almost smirked.

_Christ_.

If I'd known at fourteen what I knew now—

She sniffed, dragging me out of my reverie.

"You never call me Draco."

She swallowed noisily. And then she lifted her chin, clearly steeling herself for some wildly disagreeable task she'd assigned herself. Her eyes were still closed.

"I can't do this anymore," she confessed.

I went dumb.

"What d'you mean?" I demanded hoarsely, my mouth dry. My tongue felt large and sticky and cumbersome.

"This. You. Us. I can't—I can't do it anymore," she explained softly, finally opening her eyes. They were dull. Emotionless. I was taken aback.

"_Why_?"

She turned away.

"I ran into someone on my way here tonight."

She'd been late.

She was never fucking late.

A muscle in my jaw went taut, like a guitar string. I wondered vaguely if it might snap.

"Oh?" I asked. _Buggering fucking hell_—had my voice just cracked?

"Yeah."

I licked my lips.

"Who?"

She snorted.

"Parkinson."

I exhaled loudly.

"Right. Yeah. Parkinson."

"I just—I understand," she said quickly, twisting her hands. "I do. I understand why this can't be anything more than what it is. I do. I understand. I mean, it was my idea, wasn't it? So—I understand. I just—that doesn't make it easier. And I can't—I can't do it. Not anymore."

I stood there pensively, watching her, trying to sort through what she was feeling and what she was saying and what, exactly, it meant for me—meant _to _me. Because she was right. This had started out simple—it couldn't be anything else, not with my father running around in a mask and her best friend on a mindless crusade to rid the world of an immortal fucking sociopath. At some point in the past six months, however, it had escalated into something else, something bigger, better, and more complicated than it had any fucking right to be.

Six months.

_Christ._

Had it really been that fucking long?

"You know I can't break up with her," I replied carefully. "And you also know—she doesn't fucking _mean _anything to me. I haven't touched her since—well. You know the last time I touched her."

She laughed grimly. I fought the impulse to cover my ears. She sounded fucking _broken_, didn't she?

"You think this is about _sex_?" she demanded.

"Isn't that what she said to you? Something about how I'd just fucked her in the Prefect's bathroom?"

She visibly recoiled.

"Something like that."

I winced.

"_Hermione_."

"What?"

"Look at me. Please look at me."

"It's just—it's hard, Draco."

"And you don't think it's hard for me to watch fucking _Weasley _throw himself at you every morning at breakfast?"

Her nostrils flared and her eyes flashed and I steeled myself for a fight—but then—her shoulders slumped.

"You never call me Hermione," she said softly, glancing up. She smiled tremulously. I cleared my throat.

"Not out loud, no," I mumbled.

She looked uncomfortable. I fidgeted nervously. Christ, I wanted to fucking touch her.

"I just…whenever I see her…it's _horrible_, Draco. _She's _horrible."

I reached out for her hands and tugged her towards me.

"Would it really be any better, though? If you and I weren't—you know."

She wrapped her arms around my shoulders. I trailed my fingertips down the curve of her waist. Her skin was hot under the thin cotton of her shirt.

"No, but—" she broke off. I leaned back into the wall, spreading my legs so she could stand between them.

"Call us what you want, Granger, but even if you stopped letting me shag you—I'd still want to fucking murder Weasley every time he so much as looked at you sideways," I told her matter-of-factly, nuzzling her neck. She shivered. And then she sighed.

"You're right," she mumbled, her lips just barely grazing my throat. "It wouldn't make any difference at all. I expect I'd still want to strangle her…if only to get her to stop _talking_."

An unexpected surge of laughter rumbled in my chest.

"What?" she asked, sounding amused. "Why are you laughing?"

I shook my head, combing my fingers through her hair.

"Oh, nothing," I replied, still chuckling. "Just—you've got a way with words and all that, Granger. You know how it is."

Her breathy giggle swept across my skin like a deliciously warm breeze—I shifted uneasily, feeling my cock stir in my trousers.

"I'm overreacting, aren't I?" she mused, pressing her body closer to mine. Her breasts were crushed against my chest, and I felt her nipples tighten as my hands moved with agonizing slowness down her back.

"You do—" I broke off, gulping, as her mouth latched onto the pulse point at the base of my neck, before I continued. "You do tend to do that."

She began to toy with the buttons on my jumper.

"You sound distracted, Malfoy," she said teasingly, scraping her teeth against my collarbone. My hips jerked forward, pushing my straining erection against her stomach.

"You—ah—could say that," I managed to reply, gripping her arse and yanking her towards me. Her school skirt bunched up around her thighs, exposing soft, milky skin—_like silk_, I reminded myself, _just like silk_.

"What could _possibly_ be distracting you, I wonder?" she asked, the only obvious sign of her arousal the way she shamelessly ground her hips against mine.

I smirked—I couldn't fucking help myself, I could never fucking help myself, no matter how many times she rolled her eyes and made a disparaging remark about how I looked just like a _Malfoy _when I did it—and then I slid my hands under skirt, around to the front of her body, reveling in the feel of her, hot and needy, as I dipped a finger beneath the elastic of her knickers—_Christ_, she was wet. She was always so fucking wet.

"I can't be sure," I said huskily, "but it might have something to do with _this_." I pushed a second finger inside of her and twisted, feeling an immediate rush of purely male satisfaction when I heard her gasp. Her own fingers grappled with the buttons on my trousers, chafing against my achingly hard cock, and I couldn't suppress a groan.

"In—indeed?" she stuttered, running her tongue up my neck and swirling it around my ear. I shuddered—_fuck_, but I fucking wanted her, then and there, I wanted to spin her around and fuck her against the wall, watch the way her back arched and her arse swayed and her cunt clenched around me as she fucking came, more than once, always more than once—

I tore at the lace of her knickers while pressing her hand more firmly against the outline of my erection, moving it up and down suggestively, squeezing, rubbing, even as her lips ghosted down the side of my face before stopping—no, _hovering_—above my own.

"_Indeed_," I intoned as my thumb circled her clit, slippery and sensitive, and she moaned breathlessly into my mouth. "You're fucking wet for me, aren't you, Granger? You always are. Always so fucking wet."

And then I finally kissed her, thrusting my tongue into her open, waiting mouth in a crude approximation of what I was planning to do with my cock—soon, very soon, as soon as I could get my fucking trousers _off_—

I was staggered, as usual, by how fucking wonderfulshe tasted. The kind of wonderful that always—_always always always_—elicited a tortured, incredulous growl from the middling depths of my gut—I never wanted to let go, never wanted to give her back, even to herself, because I was afraid—so fucking afraid—that if I did, if I let go, if I gave her back—she'd be gone, and I'd be alone, and that would be the end of it.

And that wasn't a fucking option.

"Malfoy," she murmured as I removed my fingers from her cunt and fumbled with my belt. "Please, I need—"

I dropped my trousers.

"Yeah, Granger? What is it that you need?" I asked, reaching down to stroke my cock. She stared, her lips slightly parted, her eyes glazed over—this was how I liked to remember her when I was forced to watch Weasley's heavy-handed attempts at flirting, when all I could do was sulk and glower and plot his untimely demise—because it was when she was looking at me like this, like the entire world began and ended with me, only me, that I remembered how precious she was, how lucky I was, how fucking _stupid _Weasley was if he thought he actually had a fucking chance—

"I need—I need you," she replied, unzipping her skirt and letting it fall to the ground.

She reached out for me, wrapping her tiny hands—so soft, like silk, always like silk—around my cock. I bit my lip and tried hard not to come. _Christ_. She barely had to expend any fucking energy at all to make me feel like a fucking virgin.

"_Say it_, Granger," I ordered, wrenching myself from her grasp and flipping her body around. I pushed her against the wall, face-first, and kicked her legs apart. "Tell me _precisely_ what it is that you need from me."

She made a sound—a huffy, whiny sort of sound—and ground her arse against my erection. I hissed at the contact.

"I need your—I need you to fuck me, Malfoy," she gasped. "Right now."

I teased her clit with the head of my cock.

"Not good enough," I whispered into the back of her neck. I pushed into her, just the tip, before pulling out. _God_. So fucking _tight_. "Is this what you want, Granger? Hm?"

"I—I—_Draco_—yes, please, _yes_," she stammered, twisting her head around to look at me imploringly. "Fuck me. Right now."

I instantly gave up on drawing it out and tormenting her—I fucking _needed_ her, didn't I, needed this, needed to be connected in that ultimately physical way to her, just her, always her—

And so I slammed forward—violently, _aggressively_—and I was there, inside of her, and it was fucking _exquisite_—hot and tight and wet, dripping wet, soaking wet—

_Christ._

_ So fucking tight._

Sex with Granger was a revelation; had been from the start. Every curve in her body seemed to have been created solely as a counterpoint for the angles in mine—I knew, instinctively, where to touch her, how to touch her, what would make her scream and what would make her beg, and from the very first thrust, that very first time—all those months ago, so many months ago—our couplings had been _primal_, raw, an endless litany of intensely possessive words pouring out of my mouth, unstoppable, unthinkable—

_Mine._

_ Mine._

_ Mine._

The impulse I had to mark her, _claim _her, was ferocious and inexplicable—our relationship was a secret, sordid and relatively dirty. We fucked. We occasionally spoke. We didn't mention feelings—that would have made things infinitely worse, somehow—but they were still _there_, simmering right below the surface, tacit and fierce. No amount of pretending would fucking change that.

_Mine._

I thrust faster, harder, deeper.

"Fuck, yeah," I breathed, rolling my hips, reaching around her abdomen to swipe at her clit. "Feel so—so fucking good, Granger, _always so fucking good—_"

_Mine._

"Oh—oh—I'm going to—" she cried, squeezing her eyes shut.

_Mine._

"Come for me, Granger," I growled. "That's it—come on, fucking _come for me_—fuck—yeah—like that—just like that—"

_Mine._

I pinched her clit.

_Mine._

She screamed.

_Mine._

And then she tightened around me—and I was fucking gone.

_Mine mine mine mine mine_—

I roared my release, unable to stop moving, and thought, again, about how inadequate words would prove to be if I tried to describe how fucking _extraordinary _it felt to fuck Granger—there weren't any, I was sure of it, because nothing else—absolutely fucking nothing else—would ever compare, would ever be this good, this fucking perfect, and that was alright, really, I didn't need to explain it to anyone, certainly not to her, not as I turned her around, gently, and folded her into my arms, not as I smoothed her hair back, tenderly, not as she whispered—

"I love you, Draco."

I froze.

"Wh—_what_?"

She was still trembling. I was still stunned.

"I love you," she said again.

"I—I can't—"

She jerked away from me. I let her go.

"I thought—" she started to say. She stared at me searchingly. "Was I wrong?"

I was speechless.

"You can't say it, can you?" she asked, her voice stained with something that sounded rather a lot like _compassion_—I didn't want that, though, not from her, and she fucking _knew that_, she knew better, she knew better than to stand there and wait for me to say it back—

"Granger—"

"_Hermione_," she interrupted, reaching down for her discarded clothing. "My name is _Hermione_."

She zipped up her skirt and headed for the door.

"Look, maybe we should just…wait for all of this to be done," she suggested, adjusting her Gryffindor tie. "Maybe doing this—being together—is just making everything…harder than it needs to be."

The reality of my uselessness washed over me, just then—what was I to her, except something to look forward to?

"_Granger_. Don't do this."

"_My name is Hermione_. Can you at least say _that_, Draco?"

I swallowed.

"Hermione. Please."

She paused at the door. Bile rose in my throat.

"It's not over, Draco," she said quietly, so quietly, I could barely fucking hear her she said it so quietly— "It's never going to be over between us. You know that, don't you?"

I found my voice.

"Promise?"

She studied me for a moment, my question—indicative of some kind of long-repressed, latent vulnerability I hadn't even been conscious of before this moment, this God-awful fucking moment—hanging unceremoniously between us.

"I promise," she finally said, quirking her lips into a vague facsimile of a smile—it had all the requisite parts, lips and teeth and the correct assembly of the two of them together—but it wasn't right, it didn't fit, and I wanted to fucking erase it, wipe it off her face, order her to start over, try again, again and again and again, until she got it fucking right—

She left before I could respond.

OOO

_**Friday, April 23**_

_**11:56 pm**_

_**Astronomy Tower**_

She wasn't coming.

She really wasn't fucking coming.

I clenched my jaw and reached into my trouser pocket for a cigarette. With shaking hands, I attempted to light it. I missed.

"God fucking_ damn _it!" I snarled, wringing out my hand and glaring down at my slightly singed fingertip. The skin was already shiny and pink.

She really wasn't fucking coming.

Was I surprised?

Probably not.

Fuck's _sake_, I was fucking pathetic.

I took a deep breath. The cool night air penetrated my lungs like a knife—twisting and sharp and deadly accurate. It occurred to me that what I was feeling just then—whatever the fuck it was that I was feeling just then—might, in fact, be more painful than an actual stab wound.

I glanced at my watch.

_11:57_.

She really wasn't fucking coming.

I watched, almost dispassionately, as a barn owl soared across the sky. It screeched loudly, just once, before swooping down and hurtling towards the ground. It was hunting, obviously. Had it caught its prey? Was it, even now, tearing through freshly-slaughtered, still-warm flesh, its talons digging into the murky forest floor, its body primed and ready and eager for the next kill, the next chase—

God. She'd made me fucking _morbid_.

_11:58_.

How could she not be coming?

I plucked at a loose thread on my jumper. She'd wanted a declaration the previous night—she'd been waiting for it, waiting for me to put a label on an emotion that I wasn't even sure I was fucking _capable of_—and I'd failed her. I wasn't good at talking, not to her. She fucking knew that. She'd known since the beginning. And when she'd stared at me, waiting, waiting, so patient and hopeful and _anxious_—I hadn't been able to do it.

Part of me had even been angry, because she shouldn't have needed me to verbalize it. She was supposed to know. She was supposed to know that our very first kiss had left me shaken and panting and so fucking desperate for her that I hadn't been able to sleep without a solid fifteen-minute wank in the shower. She was supposed to know that when she'd asked me to stop calling what we were doing 'fucking' and the _very next night_ I'd pointedly said that _sex with her_ was better than a bottomless bowl of my favorite pudding—she was supposed to know what that meant. She was supposed to know that even if I couldn't say it out loud, I fucking felt it, and it was only a matter of time, she just had to be patient with me, that's all, she just had to wait for tomorrow—

_11:59_.

She really wasn't fucking coming.

I fumbled for another cigarette, suddenly craving the burning burst of acrid smoke that would float over the back of my tongue as soon as I took my first drag.

What was I going to do without her?

It wasn't about sex. It had stopped being about sex months ago—around the time she'd inquired, hesitantly, about whether or not I was still shagging Pansy and I'd replied, without even fucking thinking, "Why would I be doing that? She isn't you."

That had been the first time she'd given me _that_ smile, the one that I somehow knew was reserved just for me—the one that made me feel like I might be much less of a bastard than I'd always suspected I was, if only because _she _said so.

Thirty seconds left. Less than a minute.

She had to come. She had to fucking come.

I couldn't—

I crushed my cigarette between my thumb and forefinger. The tobacco spilled out, staining my hand.

I _needed _her. Didn't she _know_ that? Didn't she _know_ that whenever I thought about my future, as dismal as it was likely going to be, I always pictured her in it? Didn't she _know_ that she was the only fucking thing I had to look forward to when everything was finally fucking _over_? Didn't she _know_ that I couldn't call her by her first name, not yet, because if I started to, I wouldn't be able to stop, and then everyone would know about her, about us, and my life would essentially be forfeit, no matter who my fucking father was?

_Fifteen seconds_.

She had to come.

Disappointment started to set in—no, not that. Certainly not that. _Panic_. Yes, that's what it was—_panic_ started to set in. Heady, overwhelming panic that was worming its way through most of my muscle tissue, layer by layer by layer—but then I was numb, seized by something cold and quick that left my entire body desensitized, every last nerve-ending frozen, paralyzed, utterly unable to feel a single fucking thing—I gasped, taking a pungent gulp of oxygen.

_Ten seconds_.

She was going to come. She had to fucking come. I needed her. She knew that. She knew that I fucking needed her, and she was going to fucking come.

_Nine_.

Why couldn't I have just _said it_? What the fuck was wrong with me? I'd said it to Pansy once, hadn't I? Fourth year? The words weren't new. They weren't unfamiliar. I should have said them. I should have said them to Granger.

_Eight._

She deserved to know. She deserved to know that I was hers, even if she didn't want me—forever, I wanted to give her forever, and she deserved to know that, didn't she?

_Seven_.

Come. She had to come. She had to fucking come.

_Six._

My lips were so fucking dry.

_Five._

Did she honestly think that seeing her with fucking _Weasley_ was easy for me? Did she think that I _didn't_ want to fucking rip his fucking arms out of their fucking sockets whenever I saw him touch her?

_Four._

What would it mean if she didn't come? She'd said it wouldn't be over, that we would never be over—she'd promised, hadn't she? And her promises meant something. She was fucking honest to a fault. But it wouldn't be the same. It would never be the same. Didn't she know that?

_Three._

I should have told her. I should have said it. _Christ_. I was a buggering fucking _idiot_.

_Two._

It was hard, though. She had to know that. She had to know that sincerity wasn't one of my strengths—she had to know that saying it to her would be different. Difficult.

_One._

She wasn't coming. She really wasn't fucking coming. I'd fucked up. I'd destroyed the only part of my miserable fucking existence that wasn't tainted by my father's reputation and my own fucking cowardice and—_fuck it all_, but I wanted a fucking cigarette—_she wasn't fucking coming she wasn't fucking coming she wasn't fucking_—

"_Draco_."

I spun around. She was breathing heavily, as if she'd been running, and long tendrils of vibrant chestnut hair were sticking to the back of her neck. Her cheeks were flushed from exertion and her eyes were diamond-bright in the darkness. She was beautiful, not that she ever wanted to hear that.

"I—I'm sorry I'm late," she said, slowly walking towards me. "I wasn't sure…"

I stared at her, unwilling to blink—I was terrified, in that brief half-second before she reached out for me, that she was going to disappear. That I was imagining this, imagining her—that none of this was fucking real.

"It's alright," I managed to whisper. "It's only a little past twelve."

Her hand smoothed down the front of my jumper. She was smiling shyly—_that _smile, _my_ smile, the one that never fucking failed to make me grin in response.

"You know what that means, don't you?" she asked teasingly.

I dropped the tattered remnants of my pulverized cigarette on the ground, stretching out my fingers.

"What? What does it mean?"

She leaned forward. Her breath was hot and sweet against my ear.

"It means that it's _tomorrow_, Draco."

I glanced at my watch as I wrapped my arms around her. She fucking felt like heaven.

_12:01._

-**THE END**-


End file.
